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A Gortin Road man has been given the green light to tie the knot with Sandra the sat-nav after Vatican officials were satisfied of the genuine love between the pair.

Vivian McVicker (77) admitted he was over the moon to get permission from the Holy See to complete nuptials for what he predicts will be the happiest day of his life on October 21st 2019.

McVicker and Sandra began their 6-year relationship after he installed the device on a 2005 Toyota Corolla he bought at an auction in Cookstown.

Despite many public arguments, the worst when she took him to Aughabrack instead of Sion Mills and he threatened to throw her into the Mourne River, family and friends have revealed it has been a mostly harmonious relationship.

Best man Tommy McVicker added:

“Every Sunday you’d see them heading off to Bundoran or Downings for an outing and him and her talking away. Sometimes he’d lose the bap when she’d go on about doing a u-bend and he’d be shouting at her to give over about u-bends as he’s just stopping for mineral and crisps.”

Local clergymen have warned their congregations that this is not a go-ahead for other farmer-appliance weddings in the future.

The Tyrone County Board have confirmed that they will not overturn their decision to appoint a man with two turned-in eyes as one of their inter-county umpires for 2015.

The controversial decision came to light at the weekend after the umpire, who was officiating at an Under 16 game between Brocagh and Eglish, incorrectly awarded five goals and sixteen points over the course of an hour’s play.

Mayo, Donegal, Dublin and Kerry have already made an official complaint to Croke Park although Derry County Board explained they’d ‘wait and see how it goes’.

Pat ‘The Squint’ Kelly from Aughabrack will officiate his first National League game on February the 1st between Kerry and Mayo which will be televised live, a fact that worries close friends and relatives of The Squint.

First cousin and ex-referee John Quinn urged the county board to rethink the decision:

“No harm to The Squint but he’s the worst umpire in the country and probably across the globe. I took him as one of my umpires to Coalisland for an underage game against Edendork and on three occasions he flagged a wide, a point and a goal at the same time. The fella is seeing 2 or 3 balls every time play comes near him. It’s not his fault but surely umpiring is the last job he should be at.”

Kelly, who has wrote-off nine cars and hospitalised a barman during a game of pub darts, will take the train to Kerry to be safe.

Tyrone County Board confirmed they are firmly behind the turned-in eyes community and have pleaded with the GAA family to give Kelly a chance.

Findings by the Institute of Ulster has discovered that nearly half of all Tyrone men have a genetic aversion to summer picnics.

The report published earlier this week, confirmed a fact which many in the county already suspected, which is that men have a hypersensitivity to sitting in middle of a dunged field eating scotch eggs and cheese and onion sandwiches.

Researcher Wolfgang O’Neill explained,

“These are very unusual findings. Show a Dungannon man a tartan rug and he’s likely to break into a sweat and start muttering about having to clean the gutter or paint the garage. Under laboratory conditions we tested over a dozen men from Fintona, and every single one of them started shouting, ‘the rain’s on its way’, every time we showed them a vacuum flask. Bizarre”.

The study also showed that when the Tyrone men are placed within an al fresco picnic environment, the symptoms of the allergy begin to intensify. These vary, but can include fidgeting, sighing extremely loudly, and looking at watches, to extreme irritability, yelling at children, and and getting blind drunk.

“Aye, that sounds about right”, said chronic picnic allergy sufferer Padraig Kershaw from Omagh. “My wife’s mad for the picnics, so she is. First glimpse of sunshine and she’s got the feckin’ windbreak out. Where’s the joy in sitting in the middle of Dungannon Park surrounded by midges, watching the clouds rolling in, eating tomato sandwiches?”

Another, 52-year old Patsy McGurk from Aughabrack, said,

“Al fresco? Don’t know him. Don’t want to. Know what I hate most about picnics? No back support. It’s worse than sitting on a bloody beach. We’re built for barbeques. If I’m going to get chronic food poisoning, I’d rather have it in my own garden, not some damn field miles from anywhere. At least at home you can have a decent bowel movement in comfort. I’m too old for squatting over a bloody clump of thistles”.

Extreme sufferers of the condition were found to have other symptoms in common, including involuntary shouting, ‘we’d best be getting back’, every time they saw a Tupperware box.

A misunderstanding in Coagh yesterday saw hundreds of people leaping into the Ballinderry River believing that gold has been found, when in fact a local man had re-discovered a lost piece of music.

Damien Hetherington, a 46-year old candle extinguisher from Coagh, explained,

“Sure, I’ve been looking for my copy of ‘Gold’ by Spandau Ballet for years. It’s been missing since my big ‘Top Trumps’ clear-out of 1993, but I found it yesterday. Unbelievable. It was hiding underneath my Kajagoogoo collection. I happened to mention to the lads in Donnelly’s Bar that after years of searching I had found ‘Gold’. That’s why I was a bit excited, see? Some chanter thon big Tony Hadley. And the two brothers in it were great as well, until they went to London and turned into gangsters. Ronnie and Reggie. Such a shame”.

“Excited?” said local man Shaun Donaghy, who was in the bar at time. “That’s a feckin’ understatement. He burst through the door of the pub yelling, I’ve found gold! I’ve found gold!” and shouting about how he was going to throw a big party with wile music. Jaysus, he could hardly speak. It was like he was about to soil himself. Before you knew it there was a hundred running down the street and jumping into the Ballinderry River like eejits. There was grown men fighting each other. I’ve not seen anything like it since that time Costcutters started selling king-sized Mars Bars”.

The rumour quickly spread like wildfire, assisted by the knowledge that Tyrone already has gold beneath its hills, with more than one gold mine already in production in the local area. A variety of implements were used to pan for the non-existent gold, including hub caps, colanders, satellite dishes, vases, frying pans, dustbin lids, and in one instance a car door.

The fictitious gold rush also had a strange effect on some, including 74-year old Seamie Faloon, a farmer from Aughabrack, who appeared to have miraculously re-located to somewhere near the Mississippi River in the 1920s.

“Dang”, he said. “There’s gold in them thar hills. I can smell it. But them critters ain’t gonna get no little bitty nuggets cos they ain’t got the Faloon smarts. No sirree. Ah’m gonna get me a l’il piece of purty gold, sure as eggs is eggs. Mighty craic. Y’all”, before sitting down to an enormous plate of grits and beans.

As of this morning, the pan-handling had yielded six tadpoles, a dead pollen fish, and and an old roller-skate.

In an article titled ‘Once You Go Brack, You Never Go Back’, an American lifestyle magazine ‘Hotter’ remarkably claimed last week that Brackaville men are every woman’s fantasy as well as every other man’s nightmare. The publication, which is read by 12 million people across the States, based their findings on three Brackaville men who holidayed in Los Angeles recently and wooed local women with their knowledge of engines and drinking.

“I think their surnames were Gillis, O’Hagan and McNally. They arrived over on the Sunday and by Wednesday half of LA were hanging around their front door, pretending to have car problems. I myself pulled up saying my vehicle was spluttering. Well Gillis, in his flannelette checked shirt unbuttoned to his naval, oily arms and sweet smell of grass, came over and kicked my tyres several times. He obviously knew what he was doing. Then in those dulcet Irish tones he said ‘she’s a baste of a motor thon’. Well I swooned.”

Not all were enamoured with their presence as husbands and boyfriends sulked at home whilst their ladyfriends talked nonstop over phones and texts about ‘going Brack’ for a night.

“We were glad to see the back of those dudes,” Hank Young told us. “Our womenfolk were drooling in their sleep. And I can see why. They gave off the impression they hadn’t washed in weeks and slept in their clothes. How can an American man compete with that wild rugged look? And they can drink. Boy they can down them.”

Meanwhile Brackaville’s plans to have ‘Once You Go Brack, You Never Go Back‘ on their signpost coming out of Coalisland have been scuppered by Aughabrack who claim to have patented the phrase years ago.

A study carried out yesterday by the Northern Ireland Institute of Studies confirmed that the majority of people in Tyrone continue to stuff themselves senseless in an effort to get through all the left-over Christmas food before it goes past its sell-by date.

“Christmas itself was bad enough, but this is beyond a joke”, complained 54-year old Nuala O’Neill from Brocagh, through a mouthful of Tesco’s ‘Taste The Difference’ Plum Pudding. “I nearly gave myself the boke after eating a dozen roast potatoes out the fridge that had been there since Boxing Day. To be honest they were completely rancid, but they needed eaten. Can’t have these things going to waste you know”.

Mary Gough from The Moy agreed.

“I ate half a Christmas cake last night and then found out it can last for years. That wasn’t great news after having worked my way through the last of the turkey. We’ve had turkey sandwiches, turkey curry, turkey pasta, turkey stew, and turkey surprise. I eventually ran out of ideas and ended up making turkey meringue pie. Quite nice actually”.

“The worst of it is I just can’t get rid of the stuff”, complained Sean McKenna of Aughabrack. “Someone gave me a tin of Marks & Spencer All-Butter Shortbread as a Christmas present, so I gave it to my ma as a gift on Boxing Day. Turns out she gave it to her niece on New Year’s Eve, who gave it to her daughter on New Year’s Day, who then gave it back to me as a present at the weekend. Feckin’ cheapskates”.

Marian Quinn from Cappagh admitted:

“I sent my 7 year old cub to school with fifteen mince pies for his packed lunch. Only two days to go before the sell-by date, so they needed used up. I know he’s allergic to pastry, but sure, he’ll manage fine”.

“I found a couple of smoothies in the fridge my mum had left and if truth be told I was wanting a more healthy diet for the new year anyway, so I got tore into them. I never realised one was clotted cream and the other pure goose fat. Tara. I got through three Cadbury’s selection boxes getting rid of the taste though, so it wasn’t all bad”.

Previously confidential state files show that the government considered anyone from Tyrone to be completely terrifying and kept a file on every person born and reared in the county, code-naming the folder ‘MB’.

When pressed this morning on what MB stood for, ex-Tory Secretary of State Basil Winklebottom confirmed it stood for ‘Mad Bastards’.

The previously 1986 secret files were released by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) under the 30-year ruling and contained some startling detail into the life and habits of everyone from Ardboe to Aughabrack. It was generally concluded that:

The Ardboe diet consisted of fried eel for breakfast, fried pollan for lunch and eel stew for dinner. Ardboe children were sent to school with eel bites for a snack

Donaghmore residents were well read and could quote Shakespeare even whilst down at the shop getting corned beef.

Loughmacrory men used a petrol cologne before going to dances

Urney was a no-go area for Strabanese locals

Winklebottom admitted meeting a Tyronnie on the streets of London had most MPs tossing and turning at night:

“Do you know scientists in 1986 were sure that a Tyrone woman could wrestle a bear and defeat it? They carried out 3 experiments and all 3 times, the woman from Dromore won. And the men were all into Boomtown Rats, Springsteen and the Undertones, and dressed accordingly. We’ve always had trouble with Tyrone going back 1000 years now and if they’d mobilised the whole of Tyrone in 1983 we’d have been hammered. Then Johnny Logan arrived on the scene and they softened a bit.”

Other secret revelations and plans from 1986 included:

Fly Frank McGuigan over from America to give the restless locals something to go and watch at the weekends.

Build a Nuclear Power Station at the Washingbay

Reclaim Ballinderry

Amalgamate Augher and Clogher to create Claugher.

Make the Chopper bicycle the new county coat of arms

The catalogue of files for 1986-197 will be publicly available online on PRONI website from Tuesday 27 December 2013 and files will be available to view at PRONI from Friday 30 December.

Parents woke up on Boxing Day to a subtle shift in the balance of power between them and their offspring, with the fact having dawned on children that their parents can no longer control their behaviour with the warning of Santa not coming unless they’re good.

“It’s tara”, bemoaned Claire McCausland from Cloughfin. “I’ve been using Santy since the start of September to get my three cubs to do my bidding. It’s been grand. Plates cleared, clothes tidied away, and all in bed by 8. Now I’m hiding in the utility room fearing my own safety. This morning they all watched ‘Home Alone’ and it must’ve given them ideas. That’s why my husband’s now walking about covered in treacle out the larder and feathers out one of my best cushions. Honestly, it’s like ‘Lord Of The Flies’ out there”.

Angela Morgan, a worried mum of two from Tullyhogue, agreed.

“Our Ralph sneezed three times this morning and didn’t cover his mouth once. How am I supposed to deal with that? He’d never have got away with that a week ago. I tried telling him that the Easter Bunny won’t come but it fell on deaf ears. I’ll be scraping mucus off the sofa for months”.

7-year old Simon McCoy, a full-time child from Dregish, said,

“Easter Bunny? No-one’s going to fall for that oul’ mince. What would I be doing with Easter Eggs when it’s like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in here. Jaysus, I’ve more chocolate than I can shake a stick at”,

he said, as he tried to climb up the living room curtains holding two fistfuls of Celebrations.

Ebenezer O’Neill, a child psychologist from Aughabrack, said,

“It’s gradually dawned on children that now that Santa’s passed out all the toys, they’ve got the upper hand. Plus they’ve got time off from school and the constant sugar rush of eating two selection boxes an hour. If you combine that lot with the ideas they get from playing ‘Grand Theft Auto’, it’s the perfect storm. No wonder the part-time PSNI have been called in”.

The PSNI confirmed that several children had already been apprehended for offences such as splashing in puddles whilst wearing only slippers, not wearing scarves when it was close to freezing, answering back, not finishing their breakfast, drawing all over the back of Grandad’s head with Magic Marker when he was asleep, and vomiting into mummy’s make-up bag.

County Tyrone’s newest radio station, Tyrone FM, got off to an uncertain start on Saturday after some prominent guests failed to show up.

Tyrone FM, which broadcasts on 189 Long Wave, received mixed feedback from those who bothered tuning in for the first broadcast on Saturday evening. Radio station owner, manager, broadcaster, presenter and DJ Duncan Hughes, said,

“We started off contacting the biggest names in showbiz, hoping we’d get at least one or two of them along. Philomena couldn’t make it, and neither could Mick Jagger, Madonna, or Bowie. By the time we got all the way through the list we ended up with Eoghan Quigg’s hairdresser which was a bit disappointing. And even she wanted twenty quid”.

Hughes was particularly disappointed about the no-show of one of Ireland’s biggest names.

“We faxed Bono on the Facebook and the Slabber and we didn’t get so much as a peep. I wanted him to do one of their big songs. Something like ‘Radio Gaga’ would have been perfect. Nothing. Who does think he is, a superstar or something? Next single of his isn’t getting played on this station. That’ll learn him”.

Listener Julie Bogue, an apple-corer from Aughabrack, said,

“Without being too unkind, it was dung from start to finish. It was advertised in the Dungannon Observer as a ‘mixture of repartee, music, and the very best in Tyrone banter’. All we got was Hughes complaining about the price of mince and the roadworks on the Ballygawley line”.

Standards fell even further when, in a seemingly desperate attempt to fill air time, Hughes turned up the volume on the TV in the studio and broadcast ‘Winning Streak’ for nearly an hour, followed by an old video recording of ‘George & Mildred’ from 1978.

‘I need to look at the format again”, admitted Hughes. “The on-air ‘Spot the Ball’ was maybe a bit misjudged and the radio version on ‘Galbally On Ice’ was a touch ambitious. Still, I don’t deserve the poundin’ I’ve taken. I’ll show them feckers. Ah’m tellin’ ye, I’m going to be one of the biggest names since Dave Lee Travis. He finished on the radio years ago and even today his name’s still on everyone’s lips. I’m going to be like that”, said a defiant Hughes.

Broadcasting continues this evening with the first airing of the equally disappointing Carrickmore’s song for the final ‘Carmen Chameleon’, the whole of which we can exclusively reveal below.

Carmen Carmen Carmen Carmen Carmen Chameleon
We score the goals, we score the goals
Penrose from Aghyaran and big Oz between the sticks
White, gold and green; white, gold and green